lies

Fiction exists to become myself? Fiction is love?
ok. I stop with abstracts and make picture instead.

I am 4 and I'm not eating vegetables. rice is yummy because it tastes like mini-water sponges.
"lai-lai, what is your favorite dinosaur?" mom asks
I point to the brontosaurus in my dinosaur book.
"he isn't mean, huh? he doesn't eat other dinosaurs, right?"
I nod. I imagine riding on its back through the jungle, telling it to run whenever I saw velociraptors. I did not cry but I thought maybe I was supposed to when all the dinosaurs started dying of thirst in the Fantasia movie.
"it eats green leaves, right? that's how it gets bigger. so you should eat green leaves too. they make you bigger and stronger like the long-necked dinosaur. I'll even measure you tomorrow to see if you get bigger, okay? On that wall over there. Quick, eat!"
she rigged it so that I was an inch taller everyday. I ate that bok choy voraciously - especially the green parts so that I would meet up with Little-foot later and share stories about our favorite vegetables.

"lai-lai you know you cannot have a baby brother or sister. look at my tummy."
her huge c-section scar was purple, and went from her belly button and dove under her pants. I imagined the pain of falling down compared to the huge knife that must of split my mother in half. I couldn't.
instead, I imagined the little ant that i found crawling up my thigh. I tried not to kill it, but I smashed it under my fingers while guiding it away from my shorts.
I almost killed my mother, i thought.

whenever i scraped my knee my mother would tell me to hold my breath.
"There's no blood, lai-lai! that means it's ok!"
I look at the huge scrape on my leg. I look back at my mother. She is smiling. I look around. everything is the same. There must be something wrong with me, I want to cry.
"Don't cry, lai-lai. You are brave, huh, lailai?"
I want so bad to be brave.
I don't even cry, not even for dead dinosaurs.